What To Do When Your Support Isn't Supporting You

Weight loss is a battle! You feel like you are fighting against your body - do the workouts, eat the proper way, cut out certain things, add others, push, pull all the time. You set goals, you start seeing results and then it happens, your support isn't supporting you. Now what do you do?

Your support can be your spouse, friends, co-workers, other family members. Usually it is someone you are close to, someone you live with or spend a lot of time with during the days. And it's not like they don't know your goals, they do. You probably shared your goals with them, or they may be on the journey with you. Either way, something happens and they let you down.

It could be something they said, something they did, a behavior change. Whatever it is, it throws you off balance and you start to slide. Maybe you eat a little candy or miss a workout, just once. Then it happens again and you slip again, a couple of times a week. Your weight-loss progress starts to slow down and the once-a-week's become several-times-a-week or weeklys. You start to get discouraged. And you're not getting the support now from your support.

This is a cycle I see often in the weight-loss battle. I've been through it myself. It's not fun.

It could be a spouse who doesn't want you to workout in the morning.
It could be a friend who makes a snide comment about your nutrition plan.
It could be a co-worker who always has candy and everything else you are trying to avoid and is constantly offering it to you.
It could be a family member who just loses touch with you and blames it on you spending too much time on yourself.

How can you do it without your support? 


How can you lose weight without support?

Most of my clients have heard my "hubby-support" story about when I was in a 12-week weight-loss contest [leannesslifestyle.com] and I had made the decision to give up ice cream for the 12-week period. Was it required? No. But I knew it was hindering my progress and so I made the decision, informed by family and was determined to stick to my guns. The first weekend, and oh, the weekends are so tough when you are trying to lose weight, my supportive, type-A husband came home with 2 bags. I knew it wasn't going to be good because I can tell a mile away a grocery bag that has ice cream in it. Call it extra-sensitive perception or whatever, I know ice cream in a bag when I see it! He happily proclaimed "Hey baby, Kroger was having a sale, buy-one-get-one free, so I bought two and got two free!"

He said this as if he were expecting me to jump up and down and kiss and hug him.

Didn't happen.

In fact, quite the opposite. I was not happy. Did he not hear me just a few days ago when I shared with him my goals? Did he not understand it? I don't get it.

He didn't get it either. But I had made a commitment and I was going to stick by my commitment. I didn't eat any ice cream and by the weekend's end, the ice cream  was gone and I hadn't had one bite. This continued the ENTIRE 12 weeks. I continued the entire 12 weeks. Not one bite of ice cream. Did I make my goal? Uh, yes, I sure did! That was 8 years ago.

I had to make a decision, not only about my spouse supporting me, but about others around me as well. I had to endure the snide comments, the lack of understanding from  co-workers or friends, the lack of support from family.

And I just shut up and did it.

One of the major problems women have in losing weight is the TIME they have to spend on themselves during the process. They have to workout, they have to eat right, they make decisions every day about their health. And it INTERFERES with other's plans. And that's where the conflict comes in. Your support person may not want you to change. They may say they do, but in reality, they don't. They want the same person to look a certain way [for whatever reasons], they want your focus to be on them, they don't like CHANGE.

And to that, I say, you have to make a decision. You have to decide what is more important:


-Being the person that your support person wants you to be, no matter if you are healthy or not.
or
-Being the person that you know you want to be.

The hard part is that you might lose someone along the way. You may lose a friend. You may lose a co-worker. And here's the hardest part, you may lose a spouse.

If someone loves you, then they should accept you the way you are. And if you want to change the way you are, a true supporter will love you anyway.

I was fortunate that my spouse continued to support me, well, he is lucky :) but I had to lose support in other areas. I don't have parents that support me. And you can go on, you think about it, you grieve about it, but overall, you just get over it. That's one of the reasons I get so "clingy" and scared when I am facing a big race or an accomplishment. You always want your parents to be proud of you and I don't have that. I have a husband who loves me and my kids and sisters, but that's it. I'll never hear "good job Sandi" from my parents, so I look for other ways to hear it, from friends and family, but when it comes down to it, I am my biggest supporter.

I am the one who tells myself "great job Sandi".
I am the one who is doing the hard work.
I am the one who is living a healthy life and proud of it.

Take the focus off your support and put it on you. It's okay to do that. Now, make a commitment to yourself and don't let yourself down. And pretty soon you'll be telling yourself as well "great job!"